McHenry County Blog

Pete Gonigam’s First Electric Newspaper reported it first, but he didn’t have the map you see below.

What you see in orange is the new area within McHenry County designated by the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Development as “Targeted Employment Area under the Alien Entrepreneur Visa Program.”

Part of McHenry County eligible for EB-5 "Buy a Visa" investment program.

The yellow sections on the map are already so designated.

So, what does it mean?

Under the irreverently coined “buy a visa” program, foreigners with $1 million to invest in an approved job creation enterprise may obtain entry to the United States of America.

However, if the economic development occurs within a “Targeted Employment Area,” the required investment decreases to $500,000.

As you can see two townships—Riley and Chemung—previously were eligible for the smaller “entry fee.”

With the expansion of the Woodstock Greenwood Township section, whose northern edge is Ware Road (the street between the McHenry County Jail and the Administrative Building), to include the rural part of Dorr Township, Lakewood gains a potential source of investment for its part of the intersection of Routes 47 and 176. So does Woodstock as it expands southward toward Route 176.

The rural Dorr Township area was eligible because the census tract had an unemployment rate of 14.2% is 153% of the national average of 9.3%. (An area must be at least at the 150% level.)

Note that the connection is at a point. Only the edges of the census tracts touch. (See black mark on map.)

A January 6th letter from Lakewood Village President to Warren Ribley, Executive Director of the DCCA, states that “the proposed project” will employee “800 temporary and 400 permanent individuals.”

It references a January 7th letter to Village Manager Catherine Peterson from New York City attorney Stephen Yale-Loehr.

He delivers an affirmative answer as to whether the census tract can be designated a “Targeted Employment Area for EB-5 (the name of the “buy a visa” program) purposes.”

He points out his co-authorship of “Immigration Law and Procedure, the leading 20-volume immigration law treatise,” plus his teaching immigration law at Cornell Law School.

He has been a member or in a leadership position in the American Immigration Lawyers Association EB-5 Investors Committee since 1996.

And he says why this particular census tract, which contains the area proposed for the SportsPlex is eligible for a Targeted Employment Area designation.

DCCA apparently agreed with Yale-Loehr’s logic. That’s what DCCA Research Manager Edwin R. Taft’s February 16th letter indicates.

The outgoing Lakewood Village President is Julie Richardson. You see her above (second from the left). Sitting to her right is Julie Hansen, the village clerk. To her left is Village Administrator Catherine Peterson and Village Attorney Richard Flood.

For the rest of our lives, my wife and I shall be grateful for her successful effort to ban leaf burning.

We can now leave our bedroom windows open during the fall and couldn’t before.

When Richardson decided to retire, two candidates filed for office.

Former Village Trustee Erin Smith was one.

She grew up in Country Club Additions, the part of Lakewood between Crystal Lake and the Crystal Lake Country Club and Wedgewood. Smith now lives in Turnberry and has a responsible job at Motorola which allows her some flexibility to work from home some times.

She campaign hard, especially in original Lakewood. You could tell by all the signs.

The other candidate was John O’Hara, who has been involved in the zoning end of village government. I received no campaign literature from him.

I observed both at a village board meeting concerning the budget. Both asked good questions, but there was obvious posturing from both sides in front of an audience that exceeded the number of people who usually go to Crystal Lake City Council meetings.

There is continuing tension between Lakewood and Crystal Lake.

A suit over sewage treatment fee payment, which I suspect is just making the lawyers money, remains outstanding, goes on. A court settlement seems to be the only answer.

Afterward, maybe the two neighbors can move on.

The opportunity for providing more rational fire protection services exists for both municipalities, if anyone can dampen down the hostility Crystal Lake officials seem to feel when Lakewood decided it would be cheaper to create its own fire department, rather than pay for a level of fire protection that commercial and high rish Crystal Lake needs, but residential Lakewood does not.

The election is over and the results show a convincing victory for Smith.

She got 62% of the vote with O’Hara receiving 38%.

The vote totals were 434 to 268.

For banning phosphate fertilizer, the Village of Lakewood won the Environmental Defenders of McHenry County Theta Award last night at McHenry’s Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran Church.

Accepting the award on behalf of Village President Julie Richardson was Village Administrator Catherine Peterson. Village Clerk Janice Hansen was also in attendance.

“It’s a terrific effort that we hopes rubs off on Crystal Lake and Lake in the Hills,” award presenter Dwight Dalton said.

“This ordinance is simply Lakewood’s attempt to be the most environmentally sensitive community in McHenry County and, maybe, in Northern Illinois” Peterson said.

“Our citizens have stepped up and said, ‘We understand.’

“People really want to do the right thing.”

The McHenry County Department of Transportation won the Government Award.

Mark DeVries accepted on behalf of what I’ll probably always call the “McHenry County Highway Department.”

In making the presentation, former Defenders Executive Director Cindy Skrukrud described the worldwide attention his discovery of how to diminish highway salt use by 40%.

The innovation consists of

• 85% salt water,
• 10% sugar beet juice and
• 5% calcium cloride.

“Once you become an innovator, people bring new things to you to try,” DeVries noted.

Defenders Volunteer of the Year was Huntley’s Dorothy Johnson.

How many hours did she volunteer?

About 2,000 hours.

“It’s my home away from home,” she remarked.

Ward Duel, the first Theta Award winner, was also present.

He was first Director of the McHenry County Health Department.

He has a wonderful sense of humor. In a land inventory map, he included the one nudist colony. It’s now a McHenry County Conservation District Area north of Marengo.

Having come from the Eastern Shore of Maryland, my family was astounded that McHenry County did no have a public health department until the mid-1960’s.

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On top, Dwight Dalton can be seen giving the Theta Award to Lakewood Village Administrator Catherine Peterson. Next, Cindy Skrukrud presents the award to Mark DeVries. Below super-volunteer Dorothy Johnson is recognized by Dwight Dalton.